letter to the editor

Beyond the three Rs

Tue, 01/10/2017 - 7:30am

Dear Editor:

As a teacher for 40 years, I offer congratulations to Mr. Schwehm, Ms. Greenstone and Ms. Higgins, Making and Marketing teachers at BRHS. What a dynamic approach to meeting the educational needs of students, engaging in the entire process from product conception to distribution; from designs, individual presentations, costs analysis, production processes, jig/fixture development, quality control standards, flowcharts, inventory control, inspections, fit and tolerance, packaging, promotion, advertising and marketing, teamwork and group decision making, the list of exposures goes on.

I applaud your integration of myriad topics into a valuable, multimodal experience. Educational leadership seems mired in students’ test scores and matriculation. Common sense prevails in a course where students address authentic enterprises. It’s time education reevaluates the course offerings and “requirements.” The educational model, a factory-like drive toward standardization, hasn’t changed significantly in over 100 years. Courses like yours attempt to break that mold. Students need opportunities to Design, Engineer, Build, Test, and Evaluate their ideas; learning is in both failure and success.

In 1977, the Boothbay school system built a brand new facility: BRES. This facility housed state of the art Home Economics and Industrial Arts labs. All students grades 6, 7 and 8 experienced a variety of offerings in these facilities. Sadly, these labs and equipment are gone, one space housing maintenance equipment. More importantly, their participatory philosophy and potential to evolve into highly integrative programs, needed by all students, are gone.

While applauding Schwehm, Greenstone, Higgins, and the 20 students taking Making and Marketing, it’s time we restore and revitalize these types of opportunities for all students. A new educational model should stimulate creativity, curiosity, and the development of divergent problem-solving through course diversity. Too long, education has been divided into “academic” versus “nonacademic” channels; the skills required by life do not divide simply along these lines. Students, starting early, need to be designing, building, preparing meals, learning about child care and personal finance. There is far more to “these” classes than meets the eye; these classes offer another way for students to learn, filled with rich content, process and methodology, these classes are “hands-on, minds-on” engaging students in developmentally appropriate real world challenges. Time to renew the conversation on these classes.

Rob Cronk

Southport